1. Technological Field
This technical disclosure pertains to generally converting energy from electrical to optical (radiation) beams, and more particularly to tapering enhanced stimulated superradiant amplification. Throughout this document, optical power is intended as electromagnetic field radiation power ranging from THz through to X-ray wavelengths.
2. Background Discussion
Advances are being made toward optical to electrical power conversion using laser accelerators. Among these, the inverse free-electron laser (IFEL) accelerators provide certain advantages due to the lack of nearby boundaries, or medium to couple the light to the electrons. This implies low levels of irreversible losses and in principle enables very high efficiencies.
State of the art EUV plasma light sources are limited to a few hundred watts average power with plans to increase this to 1 kW. The process uses a laser to excite plasma, and a few percent of that energy is converted to EUV radiation which is transported to a semiconductor wafer.
Accordingly, a need exists for techniques which provide significant increases in electrical to optical amplification/conversion.